Natural gas typically contains up to 15 vol. % of hydrocarbons heavier than methane. Thus, natural gas is typically separated to provide a pipeline quality gaseous fraction and a less volatile liquid hydrocarbon fraction. These valuable natural gas liquids (NGL) are comprised of ethane, propane, butane, and minor amounts of other heavy hydrocarbons. In some circumstances, as an alternative to transportation in pipelines, natural gas at remote locations is liquefied and transported in special LNG tankers to appropriate LNG handling and storage terminals. The LNG can then be revaporized and used as a gaseous fuel in the same fashion as natural gas. Because the LNG is comprised of at least 80 mole percent methane it is often necessary to separate the methane from the heavier natural gas hydrocarbons to conform to pipeline specifications for heating value. In addition, it is desirable to recover the NGL because its components have a higher value as liquid products, where they are used as petrochemical feedstocks, compared to their value as fuel gas.
NGL is typically recovered from LNG streams by many well-known processes including “lean oil” adsorption, refrigerated “lean oil” absorption, and condensation at cryogenic temperatures. Although there are many known processes, there is always a compromise between high recovery and process simplicity (i.e., low capital investment). The most common process for recovering NGL from LNG is to pump and vaporize the LNG, and then redirect the resultant gaseous fluid to a typical industry standard turbo-expansion type cryogenic NGL recovery process. Such a process requires a large pressure drop across the turbo-expander or J.T. valve to generate cryogenic temperatures. In addition, such prior processes typically require that the resultant gaseous fluid, after LPG extraction, be compressed to attain the pre-expansion step pressure. Alternatives to this standard process are known and two such processes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,588,308 and 5,114,451. The NGL recovery process described in the '308 patent uses autorefrigeration and integrated heat exchange instead of external refrigeration or feed turbo-expanders. This process, however, requires that the LNG feed be at ambient temperature and be pretreated to remove water, acid gases and other impurities. The process described in the '451 patent recovers NGL from a LNG feed that has been warmed by heat exchange with a compressed recycle portion of the fractionation overhead. The balance of the overhead, comprised of methane-rich residual gas, is compressed and heated for introduction into pipeline distribution systems.
Our invention provides another alternative NGL recovery process that produces a low-pressure, liquid methane-rich stream that can be directed to the main LNG export pumps where it can be pumped to pipeline pressures and eventually routed to the main LNG vaporizers. Moreover, our invention uses a portion of the LNG feed directly as an external reflux in the separation process to achieve high yields of NGL as described in the specification below and defined in the claims which follow. Our invention also provides a sharp degree of separation between the desirable and undesirable components, thereby reducing overall fuel and energy consumption of the process.